Event

Full Employment: How Can We Get There and Stay There? Why Does It Matter?

The Full Employment Project hosted an event featuring a keynote speech by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and a discussion of leading economists about policies that can help restore and maintain full employment. Video

In conjunction with this event, the Center released five papers by economists on how to start the nation on a path back to full employment:

Congressional Budget Debate

The House and Senate budget plans each cut more than $3 trillion over ten years from programs that serve people of limited means. These deep reductions amount to 69 percent of the cuts to non-defense spending in both the House and Senate plans. Read more.

Congressional Republicans are using complicated — and likely poll-tested — language to make their budget plans’ deep spending cuts and dramatic structural changes in key programs for low- and moderate-income people sound benign and even positive.

While it’s common practice for lawmakers to use language that puts their plans in the best possible light, it’s important to understand exactly what they mean. Read more

For additional analysis of the House and Senate budget plans, read our roundup here.

Health

The compromise that the House has passed isn’t perfect. It would be better if policymakers fully offset the repair of the physician payment formula (known as the sustainable growth rate, or SGR) and extended CHIP for four years rather than two.

An effort should, and surely will, be made in the Senate to strengthen the CHIP component of the package by extending the program for four years. Read more